NRA President Punked Into Doing Memorial For Kids Killed by Gun Violence

National Rifle Association board member and former president David Keene recently gave a speech to the 3,044-member 2021 graduating class of James Madison Academy in Las Vegas, and of course, spent much of the speech talking about gun rights. Except there is no James Madison Academy in Las Vegas. The whole thing was a prank organized by gun control advocates, and the 3,044 seats were all empty — each representing a student who would have graduated, but was killed by gun violence in the last eight years. Check out the video below.

Former NRA President duped by Parkland parents into giving fake graduation speech to empty chairs. He thought this was the rehearsal, but a simple Google search would have told him the high school doesn’t even exist. pic.twitter.com/RLZns6YCIB

— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) June 23, 2021

The pranking organization is Change the Ref, founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son Joaquin “Guac” Oliver was murdered in the 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre.

“We lost Joaquin three months before his graduation. We know exactly the feeling of being there and receiving the diploma without your kid being there,” Patricia Oliver told Buzzfeed. “Because we understand that, we know there are a lot of people going through that same experience right now.”

Change the Ref said in a press release that “Ironically, had the men conducted a proper background check on the school, they would have seen that the school is fake.” 

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Joaquin “Guac” Oliver’s Legacy “STRONGER THAN EVER” pic.twitter.com/NJQKtljuj3

— Change the Ref (@ChangeTheRef) June 24, 2021

But as you know, the NRA is totally opposed to background checks. And if you don’t do background checks, you might shoot yourself in the foot.